I Had an Interesting French Artist to See Me This Summer

(Hardback)

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An original new look at the life and art of Emily Carr and her relationship to the international art of her time "I had an interesting French Artist to see me this summer": Emily Carr and Wolfgang Paalen in British Columbia brings together new research concerning the French/Austrian artist Wolfgang Paalen (1905-1959), and the great Canadian modernist, Emily Carr (1871-1945), both of whom dedicated their most productive years to what Paalen called the direct visualization of the forces which move our body and mind. Accompanying an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery scheduled for July 1 to November 13, 2016, the catalogue will tell the story of how both artists met in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1939, and how the creative vision of each one expanded in reaction to the landscape and the monumental art of the Northwest Coast First Nations. The catalogue will present an essay by the scholar Colin Browne, ancillary archival materials, as well as full colour reproductions of both early and late works by both artists as they moved toward their transcendent visions. With objects assembled from public and private collections internationally, this first pairing of these two modernist painters is being organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, and curated by Colin Browne.

Author Bio

Colin Browne is a poet, documentary filmmaker and non-fiction writer whose most recent book, The Hatch, was published in the spring of 2015. His films include Linton Garner: I Never Said Goodbye, Father and Son, and White Lake, nominated for a Canadian Film Award as Best Feature Length Documentary. He was an editor of Writing Magazine and a co-founder of the Kootenay School of Writing, the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters and the Art of Documentary workshops. He is currently researching the history and legacy of surrealists' engagement with the ceremonial art of the Northwest Coast for a book entitled Scavengers of Paradise, and has completed a monograph on artist Charles Edenshaw and the helmsman galaga snaanga -- known as Fungus Man -- a figure from the Haida epic, Raven Travelling.

Browne has a keen interest in film preservation and participated in the reconstruction of Edward Curtis' 1914 feature In the Land of the Head Hunters, filmed with a Kwakwaka'wakw cast and crew in Tsaxis (Fort Rupert) on Vancouver Island. Until recently, he taught film production, film history and critical writing in the Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts, where he is a Professor Emeritus. He continues to work with graduate students.